Many mobile operators today are deploying or have deployed signaling gateway based value-added services in their core network. These signal gateways often need to store the user profile for delivering the expected services. Since these gateways play a role of HLR in regard to VLR and VLR in regard to HLR, it is hereafter termed as “Proxy Profile Gateway”.
As is know in the art (see, e.g., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/782,681 titled “Providing multiple MSISDN numbers in a mobile device with a single IMSI,” filed Feb. 18, 2004, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/700,964 titled “Method and System for Keeping all Phone Numbers Active While Roaming With Diverse Operator Subscriber Identity Modules,” filed Feb. 1, 2007, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/918,644 titled “Multiple IMSI with Multiple/Single MSISDN (MIMM) Service in a Single SIM for Multiple Roaming Parties,” filed Aug. 13, 2004), Signal Gateways for multiple numbers have been developed and deployed for mobile operators to offer multiple country numbers for a subscriber with a single IMSI of a home operator, multiple numbers of the same operator for a subscriber with a single IMSI, multiple devices or IMSI with a single number of the same operator, multiple devices and multiple country numbers for a subscriber of a home operator, etc. In all these solutions, the signal gateway doubles as a virtual HLR to the real VLR and a virtual VLR to the real HLR. This is to ensure that the signal gateway can control and offer value added services for the subscribers, located either at a home network or roaming. However, the above approach suffers from a serious drawback in that mobile terminated services (e.g., calls, and SMS) will not be available to subscribers when the gateway goes down until the subscribers change VMSC/VLR locations. Although the intended service offered by the signal gateway may not be available, it is critical that the subscribers continue to have basic services available.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/979,537 titled “Method and system for providing roaming services to inbound roamers using visited network gateway location register,” filed Nov. 5, 2007 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/979,538 titled “Method and system for providing roaming services to outbound roamers using home network Gateway Location Register,” filed Nov. 5, 2007, the entirety of each of which is incorporated by this reference herein, propose an advanced gateway location register on the GLR standard [3GPP 23119] to deal with the fail-over effects of GLR and to handle stuck handsets due to traffic steering. A Gateway Location Register is a core network element that aims to optimize the signaling exchange between different networks. It is fully described in the ETSI standards (ETSI-TS.129.120 and TS.123.119). It is usually deployed in a VPMN network and doubles as a virtual HLR to the real VLR and a virtual VLR to the real HLR. These disclosures use a one-on-one mapping between a GLR GT and a real VLR GT for the virtual VLRs to the HPMN HLRs and another one-on-one mapping between a GLR GT and a real HLR GT for the virtual HLRs to the VPMN VLRs. This helps at least for an inbound roamer to receive MT services when the GLR goes down, as long as the roamer has not changed VLR/VMSC location since its first registration with the VPMN network. Of course, subsequent to GLR going down, any new VMSC/VLR changes will naturally restore the MT service. However, these disclosures do not entirely solve the problem of an inbound roaming receiving MT services when the GLR goes down, even though the roamer has changed VLR/VMSC location since its first registration with the VPMN network.
It is recognized that when the proxy gateway goes down, some enhanced services offered by the gateway will not be available to subscribers. However at least, the subscribers' basic services (excluding the enhanced ones provided by the gateway) should still be available. Therefore, there remains a need in the art for improving the state of the art for assuring the availability of the basic subscriber services, even during a downtime of the Proxy Gateway. Further, there remains a need in the art for improving the mechanisms for stopping a Proxy-Profile Gateway activity, as may be required for operations and maintenance purposes.